Chapter VI: Faint Rays From Strange Sources

Meanwhile the Captain narrowly escaped missing a car, and as he ran for it he fancied he heard a newsboy crying an extra edition of some evening paper. Idly wondering what could call forth an additional issue so soon after the regular evening edition, he took his seat, and straightway forgot the incident.

His cogitations in a little while assumed the form of a resolution to avail himself of the present opportunity to ask Mrs. Westbrook several questions which had been restrained only by the circumstances of her bereavement. He disliked obtruding himself upon her privacy at such a time; but he felt that, since the morning, she had had occasion within which to compose herself and to become expectant of the entrance of the police into the tragedy of her husband's death.

Upon arriving at the Westbrook home, he was met at the wide veranda steps by McCaleb himself.

"Sorry to have troubled you," whispered the latter, hurriedly. "I will tell you why I sent as soon as I get a chance. But wait; if my reason is not good, Miss Westbrook gave me one that is."

McCaleb paused. He seemed with only indifferent success to be curbing an inward excitement, and his manner lent a special significance to his next words.

"She has been inquiring for you," he added.

Converse did not appear at all surprised; but knowing his chief as he did, neither did McCaleb seem surprised at the reception of his pregnant announcement.

"Come with me; I have something mighty queer to show you." And after word of the Captain's arrival had been sent to the ladies, McCaleb led the way around to one side of the house, coming to a halt in the dense darkness beneath the _porte-cochère_.

"After I 'phoned, Miss Westbrook came to me and asked if there was any likelihood of your coming to the house soon. She was a good deal confused and embarrassed; but the question so stumped me--after what happened this morning, you know,--that I forgot my good manners, and asked her 'Why?' But she replied that she had something to tell you alone, which she thought you would be glad to hear--that it was of such importance that you would doubtless pardon a summons to come at once. Then I told her you were probably on your way here now; and with that she turned away, apparently satisfied."

McCaleb caught the other's arm and drew him onto the lawn, away from the house and from beneath the _porte-cochère_. Again lowering his voice to a whisper, he said:

"Look up at those two windows, there, right over the roof of the carriage-entrance."

Converse did so, and noted that the carriage-entrance roof formed a balcony upon which the two windows gave, and that the room beyond was evidently brightly illuminated, for faint rays of light found their way through minute interstices in the curtains:

"Well?" he queried at length.

"That is Miss Westbrook's bedroom."

"Yes? And what's queer about that?"

McCaleb considered a minute.

"Well, sir, I saw her at that window to-night, waving a lighted candle about, as though signalling some one."

"Ha! Which way was she looking--up--down?"

"Straight ahead, sir,--west. She seemed to be looking at or trying to see something about on a level with her head."

"On a level with her head, eh? That would be somewhat above our own." And the Captain involuntarily faced about to the west. Raising his eyes to an approximate level with those of a person standing at the window, they encountered nothing but the night sky, against which were silhouetted in dense blackness the blended outlines of trees and a gable of the house across Tenth Street. All sense of perspective was lost. And surely nothing there that a candle might aid one in seeing: its tiny light would be as insignificant--if the contrast is not already plain--as a dewdrop in the crater of Vesuvius. Finally he brought back a questioning eye to the young man's sober countenance.

"It was queer," McCaleb at once continued. "But I haven't told you the queerest part. I looked around, trying to see what she could be after--only I walked about quite a bit; but I saw nothing more than usual. Everything was perfectly quiet; no one even passed in the street all the time I was waiting here, and look as I might, I saw no one to whom she could have been making signals--not an answering light anywhere."

The speaker stopped with a start. A sudden accession of light caused both to look up, and Converse perceived the slight, graceful figure of Joyce Westbrook standing by one of the windows. The blind was now raised, and all the lights in an electrolier behind the girl threw a flood of reflected radiance upon the beautiful countenance. The light cast an aureole about her wealth of hair--ebon tresses which, if unbound, would dissolve into the fluent blackness of night, like water into water. Either by a trick of the light, or in reality, her loveliness was so etherealized as to make this motionless apparition positively weird.

At last she turned slowly away and disappeared, without drawing down the shade. A disheartening sense of depression, such as he had experienced after leaving Miss Charlotte, came over Converse again, while the detective instinct was uncompromisingly alert to McCaleb's words. Whether the vision of Joyce evoked any such feelings in the younger man, it would be impossible to say; his hawk-like gaze remained riveted upon her while she stood at the window--as if she were merely an enigma hard to solve--and as soon as she was gone, he resumed speaking in unaltered tones.

"The incident was mighty puzzling, and I began a quiet, systematic quizzing of the servants, with an idea of clearing up this side-mystery. First, I got from Miss Westbrook's woman the fact that her mistress had for a week or two left a light at that window every night. Upon being pressed closer, Melissa told me the light was first placed there on the night of Saturday, the seventh; that it was always at that particular window, and that it was allowed to burn all night."

"Do you mean, Mac, that of those two windows so close together the light is never by any chance left at the other?"

"That's it, sir; it's always the southernmost window."

"And you say these windows can't be seen from the street?"

"No, sir; they cannot."

"Very good. I fancy if a person were on a level with that window when the candle-play is going on, he could see something off there to the west that can't be seen from any other point. We'll have to know what it means, Mac, before the night is many hours older."

As he entered the house Converse was somewhat surprised at being notified by Sam that Mrs. Westbrook would receive him at his convenience, in the morning-room. "The mother instead of the daughter; now, what does that mean?" he observed, mentally. He reflected that, in the whirl of events, he had taken but small account of this lady. What little he knew of her--merely such vague reports as may come to one of any individual's personality--pictured for him a cold, selfish, distant woman, indifferent to most matters that did not affect her directly; and so far there had been no occasion for giving her any unusual attention.

Mrs. Westbrook was a tall, stately woman of a superb figure. Her mere physical appearance, the unconscious ease of her carriage, the uncompromising uplift of her head, were all remarkably impressive; but there was much beyond this. To begin with, she had been wonderfully neglected by Time. One might fancy that the hauteur of this grande dame was as discouraging to the harbinger of immortality as it was chilling to individuals who failed in any of the many qualities necessary to meet her full approval. Like the General, there was a repellent frigidity in her customary glance, and her clear, almost faultless features were marred by the aptness with which they could emphasize scorn or disdain at the expense of an ability to reflect any of the softer feelings. If she had ever possessed any of the illusions common to girlhood, they had been dispelled--forgotten--long, long since: a woman temperamentally beyond the influence of the smaller courtesies and amenities of life, it was quite patent that she could not have lived that life more alone had it been cast in the midst of a desert isle; and it was difficult to imagine her so shaken from her aplomb as McCaleb and Clancy had beheld her the night before. Perhaps Time had indeed passed her by as needing none of his attentions.

Years ago Louise Shepardson had been much sought after by the bachelor gentry of her circle. There existed a strange allurement for the masculine nature in her statuesque beauty, an enticing incentive to kindle it into flame; but the Pygmalion for whom this lovely Galatea might have quickened into life never appeared, and one by one her suitors retired to direct their ardor along paths of less resistance.

The lady was standing facing the door when Sam ushered in Mr. Converse. It was plain from her attitude that she intended to remain standing throughout the coming interview; that she expected her guest to do likewise; and that the interview itself was to be very short. It cannot be said that the Captain's susceptibilities were particularly sensitive; yet he felt the condescension with which Mrs. Westbrook received him, and all at once his scruples for the intrusion vanished. He bowed low.

"Madam," he began, his impassive features as free from any emotion as her own, "I apologize for disturbing you; I have postponed the matter as long as I could; but there are some ques--"

She interrupted him without the slightest consideration, her enunciation deliberate and incisive.

"You will please dispense with any preamble," she said, coldly. "Ask your questions as briefly and concisely as possible."

He did not hurry. It was too patent that, if she did not choose to answer, she would ignore any interrogation he might frame. Abruptly his look became as hard as flint, and all of his moving personality seemed to be concentrated in one steady, piercing glance. But her pale eyes continued to meet the steely gray ones, boldly, and as inscrutable as the granite orbs of a sphinx. Nobody had ever seen behind those eyes.

"Mrs. Westbrook," he presently retorted, his manner calculating and unsympathetic, "I regret that you meet me in this spirit of antagonism. You are making a difficult situation infinitely more diffi--"

She started to interrupt.

"Wait, please!" he peremptorily commanded. He remained silent a moment with his gaze fixed squarely upon her; then, with a sternness that would brook no trifling, continued: "Out of a common courtesy I requested this interview; but do you know, Mrs. Westbrook, if need be I could enforce it? I want to be as gentle and considerate as it is possible for me to be, but my patience has its limits. I will choose my own time and my own questions, and you will refuse to answer them at your peril."

She shrank from him as if he had struck her in the face.

"Allow me to pass," she demanded; but he neither moved nor spoke. In a moment her lip curled witheringly. "Am I to suppose that I am under arrest also?"

"If you insist on leaving the room, yes," was the blunt answer. She threw a hand to her throat and recoiled another step, overcome with a blank, horrified amazement.

"Me!" she gasped. "Arrest me!"

All at once she broke into a little laugh of biting contempt. "Why, I believe you are insane--irresponsible--that must be it. That is the only way to explain such extraordinary conduct. Now you will please step aside, and allow me to pass." She confronted him with a sudden flash of indignation before which any less masterful personality surely would have quailed. But Converse remained quite undaunted. His response was to produce his watch, with some ostentation, and stand holding it in his hand.

"As it happens," said he, easily, "I am in a hurry myself. I shall give you just two minutes to decide whether you will remain here and answer a few questions, or answer them at the police station; it is all one to me."

It is not likely that he was exacting about the time, for more than two minutes elapsed before Mrs. Westbrook gave any indication that she was not turned to stone; then slowly her rigidity relaxed, her pale eyes fell before his, a spot of color glowed on either cheek, and the man knew he had conquered. He was far from relishing the necessity for his conduct; he did not exult; but on the contrary, he responded to her capitulation with an air of deference and gentleness.

"Now then, Mrs. Westbrook," he resumed, in tones vastly altered, "I trust you have chosen the wiser course. I am asking little of you."

Her back was now turned to him, and she did not meet his regard.

"What is it you want?" she asked over one shoulder, and almost in a whisper.

"Well, first," becoming abruptly business-like and impersonal, "did you ever hear General Westbrook mention a certain Don Juan del Castillo?"

He paused, for the back turned to him betrayed a start.

"Because," he continued at once, "I believe it is through Don Juan that this mystery may be cleared." He hesitated again, curious to see her face.

Mrs. Westbrook astonished him. Quite without warning she wheeled about and took one or two rapid steps toward him. Her eyes were wide with a terror the existence of which nothing within his knowledge would account for; but it was plain that he had at last penetrated her reserve.

"What--what do you know of him?" she demanded in a hoarse, distressed whisper. "Who--who-- Good God, what are you? What do you know?" As she awaited his reply her bosom rose and fell tumultuously.

"Mrs. Westbrook--calm yourself--there is no occasion for this excitement," he returned, sorely perplexed at this unexpected turn. He hesitated to press this woman whose agitation was so profound, yet incomprehensible; but she offered him an opportunity which duty sternly bade him take advantage of. "If you will be seated for a few minutes--" he added; but she again interrupted:

"Tell me--at once--what wrong has my husband done? My God! my God! Is his name to be smirched--to be dragged in the mire--now--now that he is dead?"

He considered his reply.

"Mrs. Westbrook, I have not come here to inquire into General Westbrook's conduct while he was alive, further than is necessary to aid me in finding who is responsible for his death. Of still greater importance than this is the necessity of freeing your daughter from the cloud of suspicion which now rests upon her--if it be possible."

Something very like a sob escaped from the woman's tightly compressed lips.

"Can--can--you--you--can you save Joyce," she faltered, "without dishonoring my--without dishonoring the dead?"

Could he? He weighed his answer carefully, and when he finally spoke it was to make an attempt at reassuring this agitated woman.

"You know, I suppose, that General Westbrook was a joint administrator of the Castillo estate?"

"Yes."

"Well, then," he spoke with much earnestness, "so far as my investigations have been carried into the mutual affairs of your husband and Alberto de Sanchez, not a circumstance has appeared that is not strictly honorable. The matter has been gone into fully; the records are correct in every particular--full and complete--and nothing whatever points to anything not strictly honest and fair."

Again Converse was surprised. Mrs. Westbrook suddenly sank into a chair and burst into tears.